SMART Growth is a 4-year capacity building program designed to ensure that grantee organizations benefit from sound management practices that effectively support their art and ensure their resilience through economic shifts, staff transitions, and evolving markets.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Is it possible for more than one person from an organization to access the SMART Growth blog? Ideally, both our Executive Director and Development Manager would like to directly follow. When I emailed the most recent blog to our Executive Director, the email he received included a link that took him to a message that denied access to the blog entry I was trying to forward.

Unfortunately, I also initially accessed this blog from my personal account (a gmail account). If it's not possible to have more than one person from each organization follow the blog, can we go back to square one and reset to a work email?

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Now it’s time to start on your 3-Year SMART Growth Plan and your first year SMART Growth proposal to the Chicago Community Trust.

You’ll remember from your smARTscope final presentation and the accompanying report that there’s a page near the end titled: “Developing Your 3-Year SMART Growth Plan.”

Once you’ve completed your 3-year SMART Growth Plan, you’re ready to start on your year one proposal. Download the proposal and take a look at the format and what it’s asking. You’ll notice that it may seem slightly different then other CCT proposals you’ve completed. You’ll be working closely with your smARTscope report to think about and propose the outcomes and measures you’re planning on working on during the Smart Growth program.

Remember that your smARTscope report will NOT be shared with the Chicago Community Trust. With that in mind, once you have a draft of your proposal, you’ll be working with Andrew Micheli, Director of Programs at A&BC, to review your proposal and your 3-year SMART Growth Plan before you submit them to CCT.

The deadline for submission to CCT is September 15, 2011.In order to review your drafts in time for the CCT’s deadline, you will need to submit your drafts to A&BC by August 15, 2011.

It will be a good idea to get started on your 3-Year SMART Growth Plan and first year report as soon as you have your final smARTscope report in hand. This will give you ample time to work with A&BC to finalize your work before submitting to CCT.

If you have any questions regarding the process, post them to the blog and the person most able to help will respond. Both A&BC and the Trust will be actively monitoring the blog.

Once you have a draft of your 3-Year SMART Growth Plan and first year report, email them to Alex at A&BC. From there, Andrew will schedule a time to work with you to review your plan and proposal.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Hello, smARTies! We are meeting with the Arts & Business Council this week to review progress on the smARTscope assessment because it looks like many of you are finished and eager to move on to the next step. This blog will remain your source of information for the SMART Growth Plan and the proposal process, rather than the Trust website, because the SMART Growth program is available only to you and it is disappointing for other organizations to see the proposal info on our website and then be told that they aren't eligible.

The SMART Growth proposal template will be posted on June 23rd and must be submitted to the Trust by Sept. 15, 2011.

We will also be posting resources from time to time. Today, I want to remind you that the Trust offers a Fellowship award to individuals who are either an emerging or experienced leader in any nonprofit. This is a personal award, so you may apply in addition to receiving a SMART Growth grant. The deadline is almost upon us, so visit our website to learn more.Suzanne